Blog Posts by Zester Daily

Frittata di pasta avanzata. By Carla Capalbo

Leftover pasta. That last portion of spaghetti Bolognese or penne all'arrabbiata always poses a dilemma: too much to throw away after last night's dinner, but not quite enough for another meal.

RELATED: Find the best recipes to remake leftovers into great meals.

There are different schools of thought about what to do with it. I love eating leftover pasta cold for breakfast, right out of the serving bowl - the flavors of the sauce always seem more intense after they've merged with the chilled pasta for a few hours. My mother prefers to heat hers up for lunch, adding a little water to stop the pasta from sticking to the pan. That can be good too, though it never seems to have quite the buoyancy of just-made pasta.

RELATED: Pasta plus leftovers plus creativity equals a fun dinner.

The Italians are well versed in this dilemma. They're masters of transforming leftovers - what they call gli avanzi - into dishes whose texture and structure transcend the

Keep good olive oil from going rancid with a few storage tips.By Nancy Harmon Jenkins

I'm often struck by the prevalence of rancid olive oil in American restaurants, even very high-end restaurants that otherwise emphasize quality ingredients. Too often, that little puddle of oil proudly presented with the bread is unmistakably rancid.

RELATED: Tuscan olive oil harvest

It may have started out as an oil fully as delicious as the one I've described above, but bad handling, at a series of points, from the time it leaves the producer's tender care until the oil arrives in the user's kitchen, have corrupted a glorious product.

RELATED: Do bad politics thwart good olive oil?

Heat and light are sworn enemies of oil, which should be kept in a cool, dark place, preferably in a metal container that light can't penetrate.

But what, you might ask, is rancid? What does it taste like? It's actually hard to describe, but all too easy to sample. Walnuts, for instance, because they're full of oil (and good-for-you oil, too), go rancid

If you have apples everywhere, you need some good recipes to use them up.By Louisa Kasdon

Our gentle 2012 winter and hot summer advanced the New England harvest so that apple-picking season is upon us, weeks ahead of schedule.

My husband recently handed me a basket and gave me a choice: Either pick up the considerable mound of apples under the tree, or let the grass guy mow them into smithereens. I trudged out to the yard, cute little basket over my arm, sick of hearing about the guy and his mower and what a mess it would make.

RELATED: A feast from foraged apples.

In minutes the basket was full, even after chucking the apples with teeth marks and brown spots. Some were kind of small, sad and knobby-looking. But many were big and round as a prizefighter's fist.

The apples were ripe and ready.

RELATED: How about Scandinavian apple jelly, apple butter or apple tart?

When I bit into one, it tasted sweet. Not tart and refreshing like a Mac or a Cortland. But hey, these Golden Delicious apples are mine and I love all my children.

ester Eggplant and tomatoes can be transformed into antipasto, pasta sauce, tapenade, or pizza topping.By Clifford A. Wright

The end of summer offers the cook a wealth of sparkling fruits and vegetables for culinary transformation. One of my favorite dishes this time of year is a Sicilian preparation called mulinciana a schibecci, or eggplant ceviche.

RELATED: How about Greek roasted eggplant?

I don't make this often because it's labor intensive, but when I do I make a good amount because it can be eaten four ways:

• · As an antipasto
• · On top of pasta
• · Smeared on a toasted square of bread
• · On top of pizza.

For me, this dish captures an essential Mediterranean taste, one you will not forget.

If you know caponata, you will recognize this preparation as they are in the same family.

RELATED: Evil, sexy eggplant from the Middle Ages.

You probably know of ceviche as the famous appetizer of lime-marinated raw fish. I once read that it was introduced to the United States from Peru by restaurateurs.

But ceviche is nothing but a

Pink Lady cocktail, from San Francisco's Bubble Lounge. By Virginie Boone

One of vodka's biggest selling points is its tastelessness: It offers bartenders a neutral palate from which to highlight a host of other flavors. Consumers like it too, as a potent yet noncontroversial spirit choice. So it may seem odd that the next wave in the vodka craze is … flavored vodka.

RELATED: Preserve lemons in vodka for Italian limoncello.

Regular vodka is essentially tasteless and odorless. Made from potatoes or grain, it's distilled three times to eliminate any impurities and allowed no additives outside of water, which dilutes it to a drinkable liquid, usually about 40 proof.

RELATED: Artisanal tequila is trendy for cocktails.

It is then typically filtered through charcoal, another way of ensuring it's pure. Vodka producers often go out of their way to tout their better, bolder filtering methods - some using diamond dust or even Herkimer diamond quartz crystals. But these days, the hottest mixers are flavored vodkas.

RELATED:

Take the stress out of hosting with a few simple tips.By Diane Rossen Worthington

Giving a party is no picnic. What if the guests refuse to talk? What if there is a loud, awkward kitchen accident? What if the table doesn't look good? Worst of all, what if the food doesn't turn out? As everyone who has ever been a host knows, giving a party can create serious anxiety, even for the pros.

RELATED: Tips for being a good party guest.

Even though I am a professional chef by training, I have suffered from party-giving anxiety on more than one occasion. When I owned up to my worries that the food wouldn't be good enough and that I didn't know how to make a pleasing table setting, I began to see how I could solve these problems.

RELATED: Find great party food recipes.

I started giving small parties and with more experience I became a much less anxious host. I also did research online about ways to arrange a simple table and lost my fear of that task. Most important, I threw out perfection as a goal.

RELATED: How to start

Encouraging teens to learn to cook for themselves is important for developing healthy eating habits.By Diana Van Buren

Teens need cooking inspiration somewhere. The popularity and abundance of television cooking shows does not appear to have encouraged the many Americans who watch them to return to the kitchen to cook a family meal. Unless, that is, you consider "cooking" to be using a countertop appliance that has a fool-proof "chicken nugget" button.

RELATED: Kid-friendly fruit muffins made from leftovers.

This next generation must learn how to cook for themselves, using whole foods - not just boxes and jars from Trader Joe's. Home cooking, starting with real whole foods, is empowering. And it is our only hope for reversing our national weight-gain and its rampant side effects, which show up in the form of mostly preventable, but ultimately debilitating, diseases.

RELATED: Feed your kids like the chefs feed theirs.

Where are the home economics classes of yore, where some of you may remember learning how to make an omelet? Not where we need them most, that's

It's important to choose the right jar for job with home canning.By Susan Lutz

About six months ago, I salvaged a beautiful marinara sauce jar that I intended to refill with home-canned sweet pickles made using my mother's recipe. And if I hadn't taken a 12-week course to become a certified Master Food Preserver, I might have used that as a canning jar and possibly poisoned my whole family.

The glass jar has a classic shape and reads "Mason" on the side but it is, in fact, a faux Mason jar. And if you're planning to do home canning that really matters.

A brief history of canning jars

The original Mason jar was invented by John Landis Mason in 1858, and it's threaded top was a revolutionary concept in food preservation. Mason's system was relatively cheap, easy to use and far less messy than the previously used method, which required sealing glass jars with a flat tin lid and sealing wax.

RELATED: Preserve lemons with Italian limoncello.

Unfortunately for Mason, he didn't renew his patent after it expired in 1879, and he